


Miss Marple's Eye, Jane Austen's Satisfaction, and the Red Pen in the Velvet Glove: One Beta's Personality

by Developmental_Beta (Emmessann)



Category: AUSTEN Jane - Works, Miss Marple - Agatha Christie, Original Work
Genre: Beta Personality, Beta-Reading, Developmental Beta-Reading, Developmental Editing, Gen, M/M, Meta, Writing, editing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:30:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmessann/pseuds/Developmental_Beta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which one beta explains the personality quirks that led her to this fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miss Marple's Eye, Jane Austen's Satisfaction, and the Red Pen in the Velvet Glove: One Beta's Personality

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Medea for the beta

One of my commenters has said that she enjoys beta work but it isn't her calling. Although I’ve posted [stories](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1798978) before and have a big one in the works, the truth is, developmental beta/editing probably _is_ my fandom calling. Unlike writing, which has been a very hard battle, almost everything I know about developmental beta came to me fairly easily as a natural extension of my personality.

By no means do I think mine is the only personality that could do this work. However, it may be interesting to look at a few quirks that I think inform my genuine enjoyment of beta-reading. Perhaps they’ll ring a bell, or maybe we can discuss some of the other elements that come together to make a good beta.

**Miss Marple’s Eye: Applied Generalities**

When I was a kid, I picked up my first-ever Adult Novel, which happened to be _Nemesis_ , a Miss Marple mystery by Agatha Christie.

Miss Marple was the first time I truly saw myself reflected in a fictional character. We shared an unusual viewpoint, something I couldn't have put into words on my own. Miss Marple's stock in trade as a detective is that she sees people as part of a very big picture filled with patterns that repeat themselves in many different guises. Her core gift is to assemble these patterns and match like to like, no matter how different individuals may look on the surface.

Miss Marple spent her first seventy years keenly observing the seemingly boring inhabitants of St. Mary Mead, a tiny pastoral village which is actually a wretched hive of jumble sales and villainy. Whenever she encounters a new murder, she applies the patterns she’s absorbed from decades of penny-ante malevolence to recognize its evil big brother. For instance: in one book, she realizes that the body in the library was planted there as a spiteful prank to disconcert the homeowner. It’s _obvious_ , she says, because it’s just like that time little Tommy Bond put a frog in the new schoolmistress’ grandfather clock.

I don’t solve crimes or knit masses of fluffy pink wool, but assembling people (and stories) into patterns like that is very key to my character. The way this viewpoint really comes together for beta reading is that I have a mental database of stories, with events and people that tend to appear in them -- their general patterns. As a beta, it’s often helpful if I gently steer a story to fit its natural pattern in a satisfying way. However, I work from a library of patterns, not specifics.

For example, in a Snape/Lupin Harry Potter fic:

Yes: “I really think Remus needs to rescue Severus at some point, to balance all of the times you show Severus saving him. It doesn’t have to be a big save, maybe something small and symbolic?”

No: “In part four, why don’t you show Snape getting caught by Lucius because he’s making the Wolfsbane potion for Remus in Malfoy Manor? Then Remus comes in and he gets in a big argument with Malfoy and threatens to get him in trouble with Lord Voldemort.”

Yes: “I was really worried when Voldemort tortured Snape with the Cruciatus curse. Is there some way to show that Remus was concerned about him, too, even though he couldn't do anything to stop it?”

No: _“Weeping at the bedside._ I want to see Remus weeping at the bedside over Snape’s pathetic broken form. 500 words at least.”

So that’s the first beta trait I can identify -- matching pattern to pattern, without demanding that the specifics line up in a particular way.

 

**Jane Austen’s Satisfaction: A Life of Quiet Smugness**

I like to think of Jane Austen sitting demurely in her parlor, observing the foibles of everyone she met and distilling them into romantic comedy so universal it’s still funny two hundred years later. As I understand it, she was the quiet aunt who often sat unnoticed. She may well have been the sharpest, most humane observer in England, but back home she saw no need to parlay those skills to gain a rep as the Snarkiest Wit in the Village.

It’s that image of dear Aunt Jane sitting quietly, with no need to show off for all and sundry, that stays with me as a beta. She seems to have found some quiet enjoyment just in being herself and getting on with things, that didn’t need a lot of outside accolades to keep going.

You have to understand, the rewards for being a beta reader are about a hundred times more subtle than the rewards of being a fanfic writer, and that is _really_ saying something. A good fan writer gets direct encouragement from readers. No beta ever does, because all praise for the writing is rightfully the author’s. The main reward a beta gets comes from the writer. Sometimes it’s a new friendship, and sometimes it’s “So, I’ll send you the next one in about a month, then.” (And indeed, those are both quite satisfying.) Fanfic can be used to build social credibility in a way that “I was the beta for _Purslane and Arugula_ \-- don’t you remember?” really cannot. In a typical beta situation, there are exactly two people who will ever know what happened.

So the rewards for beta-reading are almost entirely self-bestowed, and yet I've always found it incredibly satisfying. A few ways this plays out:

  * I’m just as happy to suggest a successful change that wins someone else a lot of genuine praise, as to garner praise for myself. I don’t like attention for its own sake, but I love the quietly smug awareness that _I did that._


  * Therefore, one of the pleasures of beta-reading is looking at reader comments. I will always take note when a reader singles out a scene that I influenced. I never say anything about it (“By the way, that part where they have sex in the Office Max? _Totally_ my idea.”) Still, I do look.


  * What happens, gratifyingly often, is that a suggestion triggers something in a writer, and the story moves from a somewhat drab, confused first draft to a compelling revision with emotional resonance. Writing I didn’t know they were capable of. Writing _they_ didn't know they were capable of. And when we celebrate that together (“Squee! OMG hon, this is FANTASTIC!”) that’s my celebration, too.



 

**The Red Pen in the Velvet Glove: Beta in Terms Fandom Will Understand**

Although I have read and beta’d a metric ton of BDSM stories, it isn't really my kink. I read _lots_ of things that are not my kink because they’re often well-written, and because I like to garner some insight into what it means to the people who do enjoy it. (See: Miss Marple and me.)

That said, some of the quieter, thinkier Dom/sub stories that explore D/s as a social code -- for example, the pan-fandom conceit wherein everyone has “D” or “s” printed on their drivers’ licenses, and how that affects their daily lives -- do speak to an attitude that I recognize from beta.

See, I've cultivated a “lovable goofball” persona that’s handy when I beta or teach. It’s genuine enough: I am often a goofball, and somewhat lovable. It’s just that my sense of responsibility toward my writers/students, my feeling of possessiveness towards the quality of the writer’s experience with me, is actually a lot broodier and more intense than that. And it never stops darkly muttering in the background. This is what it says:

  * While we are doing this, you are _mine_. Your experience is mine. My responsibility, my job to make it work. All you have to do is respond in the moment, and I’ll adapt to what you say.


  * It’s my job to figure out what you need and provide it, to adjust when that changes, and to protect you from the worst excesses of this process.


  * I’m in charge of this part. You just have to respond. Do whatever feels right. I won’t judge.


  * Of course, the whole business is voluntary. You can walk away at any time. No one would think any less of you if you need to call a stop. Just understand that if you do, it will be difficult for us to reach this headspace together again.



Hmm. Writing the dark mutterings out like that sounds a bit extreme. I take editing (and the teaching I've done) very seriously but it's not like I have my own dungeon full of writer's cells. (Though if anyone is looking for meme bait...)

It's more of a light awareness, a background radiation of both "I'M IN CHARGE, NOW!" and  _"...to be exactly the person you need me to be, dear."_   The iron fist in the velvet glove, indeed.

 

***

So that’s me. Of course, I like to think that the two Janes, Austen and Marple had their secret tiger side, as well. (My god, just imagine them on the kink meme.)

In a way, this little exercise in navel-gazing is my answer to the occasional comments I've seen through the years. You'll see writers who thank their betas profusely, for doing such awful, unimaginable drudgery as _beta_. The writer will lavish appreciation for the huge sacrifice the beta made, of time spent  _editing_  instead of writing, which as  _everyone_ knows is the only fun part.

So this is just a little explanation to say: "That is not it, at all."

At least not for me, at all.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to read my other essays on "developmental beta" they are all under my author tag or my [Tumblr.](http://developmental-beta.tumblr.com/)


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